Hearing set on tax breaks for Dick’s Sporting Goods store

BATAVIA – The Genesee County Economic Development Center will hold a required public hearing Tuesday on its plan to grant $1 million in incentives to COR Development for a Dick’s Sporting Goods store.

The hearing at 7 p.m. in Batavia Town Hall, 3833 W. Main St. Road, is expected to bring strong objections from a Libertarian group and two local sports retailers.

The EDC board has already approved more than $828,000 in property tax relief and more than $22,000 in mortgage and sales tax exemptions for a $4.5 million project.

COR wants to remodel a Lowe’s Home Improvement store, an anchor of the Batavia Towne Centre until it closed two years ago.

A newly formed Libertarian Committee has begun an online petition in opposition to tax incentives, which were already given when the strip mall store opened five years ago.

COR, which continues to pay property taxes on the vacant 180,000 square-foot space, claims the tax breaks would be more than offset by creating jobs and sales tax revenue from a base that could include out-of-town shoppers for a national retail chain.

ECD also points to a “multiplier effect” when a new business and its workers buy services from local vendors and spend wages in the community.

Opposition could also come from Barrett’s Marine & Sporting Supplies and Fisher Sports, local sports equipment retailers. Barrett’s is about a half-mile from the proposed Dick’s site.

COR has said that Dick’s would like to be open before the Christmas season.